DANGER! INCOMING WALL OF TEXT! (answering three people at once).
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This isn't directly analogous, as the immortality itself isn't morally questionable. It's the means with which it is attained, which is apparantly the murder of other people.
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Actually, in this case means and end are directly related.
Fistandantilus essentially sought immortality through
moral and ethical methods, and found that it couldn't
be done; the gods of neutrality (and presumably the gods
of good) told him No.
Having exhausted the 'good' options, he was left with
the choice of being immortal and evil or going to the
afterlife as a neutral.
He chose immortality and evil.
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I don't particularly get this accusation of hubris. The soul is supposedly eternal, and thus immortal and is the essence of man anyway. To say that the mere corporeal form clinging to life is coming closer to the realm of gods than dying and becoming an imortal essence is rather off, in that the latter is closer to god. As well, the bounds of mortals is merely that which they cannot do. If immortality is within the grasp of mortals, then it cannot be beyond the bounds of what they can do. Is it stepping into the realm of the gods? I don't think so. Being immortal doesn't seem to make any character in literature any more god like.
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Immortality, yes. But the thing is in these stories
there's a type of immortality allotted to humans (Heaven,
or resurrection) that is Right And Proper for them, and trying
to achieve the same results through channels that are not Right
And Proper is evil in and of itself.
Any story that involves the occult -- especially horror stories --
has a fundamental axiom the idea that there are things humans
*can* do but *should not*. Deciding what these rules are is the
realm of the makers of humans (Gilean made humans in Dragonlance).
The idea of Supernatural Evil -- like the One Ring -- is
that there are some things just so wrong that they Must Never
Be Done. That there is no justifiable reason to do this thing
even for the best of ends, because all that is done by this means
turn to evil.
Achieving immortality through some goodly means (resurrection
by a good god, reincarnation, etc) is acceptable, because it's
a provision made by the gods for humans. To turn away and do it
on your own, using means that the gods have expressly forbidden --
well, it's evil in D&D terms.
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In this case however, the gods are known, and they aren't particularly wise, benevolent or reasonable. Their commands and edicts are contradictory to one another, and in some cases, the gods themselves favour followers who act in actual evil ways. Natural order and gods in D&D are not those who portray morality as an absolute good, but present a range of moralities which none perfectly adhere to themselves.
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All true, but they're still the rulers of the game universe. Any
PC crosses them at peril. If there is objective good and evil
in the game world, it is the gods whom the DM will use to enforce
those rules.
In this sense, they're sort of like human policeman -- any given
policeman may be corrupt, arrogant, or have a whole host of issues.
But they do still have a badge and it's their job to keep the peace.
If you get into an argument with one, it'll be you who goes to jail
unless you can prove otherwise ... and in a D&D world, it's the gods
(read: The DM) who will judge the case.
Fundamentally, they're still the arbiters of right and wrong in the
game world. They may not be perfect at it, but they are the tools
that are available.
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That's a false dichotomy. One good man doesn't somehow negate another. More good men is simply more good men, and frankly, the typical campaign world can always do with more, as it seems for every adventuring group of good aligned adventurers, there's at least a dozen evil cults, evil monsters etc. waiting to eat them to death.
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I disagree. I see it a lot in my job -- I often act as your basic
tech superhero. And in some jobs if I'm not careful the junior people slack off
because they're sure ol' Brian will step in and save the day at the last minute.
As a rule, I've found 'heroes', in the real world, is a bad idea.
It's almost a conspiracy -- the hero saves the day, and people
reciprocate for him doing their job for them by pouring on the
praise and flattery. It's far better for everyone to pull their
weight than to have one man playing Achilles and holding the project
on his shoulders. That works all right right up until the point
Achilles can't take it any more and gets sick. I've found that
the only way to get people to do their share of the work is to
deliberately dial down the heroism.
As a rule, I've found that people use 'heroes' as an excuse not
to do any work themselves. I'll wager there will be a lot fewer
people willing to be adventurers for the cause of good if they knew
that everything was 'all taken care of'. I've certainly seen it
work that way.
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As well, one can still be valuable without being indespensible, and the latter is a strong enough argument to argue that it can be moral sticking around. A Baelnorn for instance, is not a necessary part of an elven community, but they do make them better.
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The thing is there are already near-omnipotent, wise, level gazillion
plus beings in the world whose job it is to be immortal and look out
for the interests of good. They are called the good gods.
When someone stretches for immortality and power of this sort, they
are effectively trying to elevate themselves into the local pantheon.
If the gods of good are amenable to that, that's one thing. But if
the gods of good (however imperfect) say no, a goodly character must
accept his/her place in the Grand Design and assume that the gods
have the situation under control.
To refuse to accept this and attempt to achieve immortality -- a place
in the pantheon without the agreement of the good gods -- well,
you may succeed but it isn't going to be a good act, by their
lights anyway.
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There are equivalently wise old men who have lived for ages that manipulate and move man towards those same ends. Gandalf the grey is an example of that sort of thing. Eriol from CCS is a good anime example.
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yes, but they're rarely PCs. They're offstage quest hooks. As a rule,
in these narratives a PC who reaches that level of power hands over
his character sheet, then the character is retired to a keep or whatever
to live happily ever after while some new crop of adventurers starts
up.
Fundamentally, in a campaign world there are gods, who are omnipotent
but offstage, and mortal adventurers, who are severely limited in
power but able to act in the world. A being seeking immortality of
that sort is essentially trying to have the best of both worlds --
to have both the power of a god and the freedom to act of a human.
Hello, Mary Sue!
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So bettering yourself is evil?
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By itself? Of course not.
We've mostly grown up in Democratic cultures, so we don't really
accept the idea of a person having a "place" in society. In our
cultural, everyone is more or less interchangeable. A son of an
electrician can become a banker, or a king, or a millionaire, and
no one's upset about this.
In a feudal culture like ancient Japan, bettering yourself IS
evil. That's "rising above your station". A peasant aspiring
to become a samurai would be put to death. Similarly, in western
Europe a serf could get in a lot of trouble for striking a freeman.
Same in traditional Hindi culture.
Well, in traditional mythology and in D&D, the supernatural world
is NOT a democracy, where everyone can become a god. There's a defined
order in the universe, one proper for gods, another for mortals,
another for animals.
In such a world, there's plenty of room for humans to become better
humans, but not to become gods. That's crossing a line humans were
never intended to cross, and if they do, suffering will follow
for themselves and others, no matter how good their intentions.
Greek Mythology is replete with stories like this; many fables involves some mortal becoming so pleased with themselves
that they challenge the gods, and are promptly stepped on.
Arachne
comes to mind.
As discussed above: There are rules for gods, and rules for humans.
In the OOTSverse, this is part of a general agreement between
the gods of good and evil , and the gods of the pantheons,
that maintains the balance of power and prevents
them from destroying the world. Part of that agreement is that
A god is powerful, but offstage and acts through adventurers.
An adventurer is onstage and gets to do significant acts.
But a
person aspiring to this sort of immortality is trying to have
the good of both kinds -- the power of a god and the freedom
of an adventurer. I strongly doubt the gods will allow a
mortal power that they themselves, by agreement, deny to
their own kind.
In fact, a mortal trying to insert him- or her-self as an immortal
actor into that situation might very well upset the balance of power
between the various actors, triggering an all-out war which might
destroy the world.
What this means is that not only will the mortal be considered evil,
it's likely that *all* the gods, and not just the good ones,
will gang up on him/her. To save the balance, and save the world.
That's pretty much what happened to Raistlin.
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So is getting treatment for cancer evil, since you're ignoring the natural order and extending your life through use of things that should not be(radiation)?
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I was talking about D&D here and why a 'good' wizard would typically
not desire lichdom. Do you have radiotherapy in your campaign? No?
Then perhaps we should avoid the topic of real-world morality?
In *the real world* I have no problem with radiotherapy, but I
do have a problem with the real-world occult. Which gets onto
religious ground, so I'll drop it now. PM to continue that
particular discussion further.
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By level 20, you may not be the only option, but you're one of very few forces for good on that scale.
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As I said, there are already immortal beings whose job it is
to deal with that sort of thing. They are called gods. If they
want to admit you to their ranks, well and good. If not -- you
may defy them and achieve mortality anyway, but the good gods will
call you evil (for defying them) and call the arts you use to
achieve this evil (because you're using arts to do something
they expressly forbid).
This is what I meant by hubris -- if the PC confines his vision
to the realm of mortals, then it may very well seem that (s)he
is all there is. But if the PC has spent any time at all on the
outer planes, they know that there are many Powers in the world ,
for good and for evil, and that Divine Rank outclasses even
epic-level magic (if I recall those rules correctly). That they
are not Mary Sue who rules the world, but only a small fish in
a big pond.
So the good magic-user would understand that there are already
greater powers than him/herself, and that they will provide when
he/she is gone.
The alternative is to decide that this is not true -- that the
magic user is wiser, smarter, and can do a better job than the gods
can do. This requires rebelling against them, forcing them
to accept you and your ideas.
There's a few precedents for that sort of thing in traditional
story -- the being of light who, through arrogance, chose to believe
that his way was a better way than the given design, and because
of this chose to weave a different theme according to his own
design rather than the one he was given. That being's name in
the Silmarillion is Morgoth.
And rest assured that that is what the good gods will call any
character who chooses to rebel against their design, imposing
the character's will in direct defiance of theirs.
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Who says that if you die someone will automatically take your place? There aren't that many adventurers in the first place, getting to 20 wipes out most of those. There might not be a good guy of your talents for another hundred years in many settings.
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In a game world I promise you the GM -- excuse me,
the gods -- will come up with someone.
A campaign world in which good or evil utterly triumphs because
there remain powerful characters on one side and not the other
is not one people are interested in adventuring in.
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Assuming the Soul Crystal didn't leak his essence, but Diablo only remained sealed while the hero remained alive, would it be considered hubris for the Hero to seek immortality to keep Diablo contained for all eternity, or should he shuffle off the mortal coil when his time was due, let Diablo loose on the world and hope there were other heroes around, capable of resealing it?
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If the only two choices are "achieve immortality" or "Release diablo", of course
it's right for the hero to achieve immortality. But that's a special case, an
exception to the rule dictated by the specific requirements of that game world.
If I want to write a campaign world where the only way to stop The Ultimate
Evil is to butcher a thousand baby boys, well, I can do that. It may very well
be 'necessary' and therefore 'good', but that doesn't mean that butchering
a thousand innocent children is going to be good in your average campaign world,
or even in my own outside the very narrow circumstance that made it necessary
that one time.
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Some times you can't afford to take that risk.
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Depends on the campaign world.
In Tolkien's world -- yes, you can afford to take the risk. It is quite
reasonable to argue that the only way to stop Sauron is to seize the ring
and use its power to destroy him. And a fundamental lesson of Tolkien's world
is that this is a false dichotomy -- that if you do the right thing, and
resist temptation, some other way will come through. That it is better
to trust, and do the right thing even if it seems hopeless, than it is
to do something vile and unspeakable, then spend the rest of your life telling
yourself 'there was no other way'. Who knows? Perhaps in time the PC will
come to believe it.
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Alternatively you can take elements of both approaches - many stories have the hero seeking out the wise old hermit for advice and knowledge.
Why couldn't the hermit be an immortal wizard who's decided to take a less active role in the world to let all the young 'uns have their turn but still be around in case things get really bad?
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That would work, I think.
Respectfully,
Brian Pendell
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